


i carry your heart with me

by shivadyne



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27641105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shivadyne/pseuds/shivadyne
Summary: Tifa reaches out to ruffle Cloud’s hair, her fingers resting there as she watches him. “You look kind of like that stray cat we saw yesterday,” she says idly. “Maybe it’s because you’re so skinny.”“You just like to compare me to small animals,” Cloud mutters, bitter because he can never find it in him to be mean to Tifa.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28
Collections: 2020 FF7 Secret Santa





	i carry your heart with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marshmall0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmall0/gifts).



> wrote this up for the secret santa! hope you enjoy! title comes from e.e. cummings

“I told you all that I remember,” Cloud says, snappish from frustration with his swiss-cheese brain. He rolls the green Materia between his thumb and forefinger, the smooth surface rippling tauntingly as if it holds all the answers to the universe. He wishes briefly that he was a Summon, only brought out here and there when Tifa needed him only to be returned to the cool darkness of nothingness. “I forget so much. It must have been the mako, eating away at my brain. I feel like there are memories, but I can only get glimpses at things like a flash of color or sound or a sensation. Like… being cold, surrounded in green…” He shudders, staring down at the table.

“I know,” Tifa says, reaching under the counter for a glass. She slams it on the counter, wincing at the unnecessary loudness and the way Cloud flinches back from the sound, eyes blown wide. “Sorry. I just… I want to help, Cloud.” She pours him out a drink, the strongest brew she had concocted just for him, and slides it across the table. “Bar’s closed for the night. It’s just you and me. We can hang out at my place and have a sleepover. Like old times?”

Cloud looks back at her, shoulders raised up around his ears and hair in wild disarray. His eyes look bruised around the edges, a mottled black and blue that shines against his far too pale skin. “I don’t remember a lot about old times,” he says, hesitantly.

“I can help you remember.” Tifa reaches out to ruffle Cloud’s hair, her fingers resting there as she watches him. “You look kind of like that stray cat we saw yesterday,” she says idly. “Maybe it’s because you’re so skinny.”

“You just like to compare me to small animals,” Cloud mutters, bitter because he can never find it in him to be mean to Tifa. He meets her vibrant smile with a blank look, but his silence isn’t exactly a no.

“Well?” Tifa asks as she pushes her way from out behind the bar, resting a hand on her hip and looking down at Cloud. “Do you want to do this or not?” she asks, smiling at him. “It’s either that or you pace around next door to me, wearing a hole in the floor all night as usual.”

Cloud sighs, pulling himself out of his seat and gesturing towards the exit. “Lead the way,” he says, avoiding meeting her eyes.

Tifa grabs his wrist, a careful and practiced movement where she makes sure he can see her doing it, and leads the way back towards the apartments they live in. She looks up at the sky as they walk, breathing out puffs of cold air and smiling at the stars. “Reminds me of our promise, out here in the stars. Guess we’ll have to keep making new promises now to make up for lost time.”

Cloud follows her, glancing around at the streets that he’s still learning to recognize. He briefly misses the old bar, the one that was burned down to rubble when the plate fell, if only because he was getting used to the layout of the area. “I’m not good with promises,” he tells her. “Swords, though…”

“Your jokes were always so… Cloud.” Tifa laughs, turning back to look at him. Her eyes are bright tonight, glimmering like a Materia, and it’s distracting enough that Cloud nearly runs into her back when she makes an abrupt stop outside the apartment building. “Never change,” she tells him, leading the way inside.

“Well, you’re still always so… Tifa,” Cloud says, unsure what else to say while stepping in after her. He kicks off his boots after Tifa removes her shoes, knowing by now to place his sword down as well lest he face Tifa’s brutal sense of hospitality for the hundredth time.

Tifa raises an eyebrow at him, heading over to the fridge to pull out the leftovers from their dinner last night. She heats them up in the microwave, leaning back against the wall. “I see you’re as conversational as ever,” she teases. “We’re going to work on that.”

“I don’t have problems with talking,” Cloud says defensively, crossing his arms as he sits down on the couch that they’d dragged in just a few weeks ago. “I have problems with people talking to me.”

Tifa pulls out their reheated curry, sitting down next to Cloud and offering him a spoon so that they can share. “I can tell,” she says, smiling as she fondly remembers some of the conversation blunders Cloud made. “I’ll never forget how many people you’ve pissed off on our journey without meaning to. Including Cid.”

“Let’s mosey is a completely reasonable thing to say,” Cloud mumbles as he eats the curry, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder next to her. “Is this what we used to do? Sit together as you picked on me all night?”

“No.” Tifa takes a bite of curry, glancing at him thoughtfully. “I used to try out makeup on you as my test dummy. You have a very pretty face for it.”

Cloud frowns back at her, remembering the Don Corneo fiasco in its entirety. “…There’s no way you convinced me to do that,” he says, trying to think back to their childhood. The memories wash over him, but they remain faint impressions as always of the sound of Tifa’s laugh and her too-wide smile, gap-toothed and still so pretty. “Is there?”

“No, no, I really did!” Tifa pushes the half-eaten curry into Cloud’s hands, ignoring his rabbit-eyed look as she climbs to her feet. “And I think you’d like to see how you look with a little bit of eyeliner, at least. Let me show you?”

Cloud sighs, watching her look around for her makeup kit. “I’m starting to think the thing that remained the same between us was that you always dragged me into your schemes…”

“Found it!” Tifa sits back down on the couch, sideways so that she can face Cloud with the eyeliner uncapped in her hand. “And you were never one to be able to say no to girls,” she admits.

Cloud sighs, gesturing to his face. “Go ahead,” he says, giving in once again. “I really need to move in with Vincent instead.”

“You know you’d miss me too much,” Tifa says as she steadily applies the eyeliner, looking at Cloud’s eyelashes. “Your eyelashes are so long for a guy. I’m almost jealous.”

Cloud tries his best to keep still for her. “Yeah… I would… but at least he’d let me brood instead of making me pretty.”

“You’re already pretty,” Tifa says dismissively, finishing applying the eyeliner as she caps it again. “Go ahead, look at yourself. I’m pretty sure you could get anyone on the planet with that face.”

Cloud gets up to inspect himself in her mirror, feeling a little impressed. “Maybe… it’s not so bad,” he says, glancing back to her. “But I’m not going to wear a dress again.”

Tifa falls back against the couch cushions, stifling a laugh behind her hand. “You’re still mad about that?” she asks, giggling.

Cloud nods, rejoining her on the couch. He leans his head on her shoulder, relaxing from the steadying breaths Tifa’s taking to get rid of her laughter slowly but surely. “My hair looked pretty bad.”

“Oh, the hair was just the issue?” Tifa reaches her hand around to play with Cloud’s hair, running her fingers through it carefully and feeling him slump into her side even further tiredly. “In the future sleepovers we have, we’re going to work your way up to it.”

Cloud closes his eyes, feeling warm and safe next to the one person he trusts the most. “I’ll think about it,” he says after a moment. “If you can convince me on another sleepover, that is.”

“I don’t think you’re that hard to convince.” Tifa nudges his forehead with her fingertip. “You act tough, but we both know you’re all soft and shy underneath that attitude.”

“I’m not,” Cloud says, huffing as he pulls away just enough to give her a half-hearted, sleepy glare.

“Riiiiight.” Tifa plops back against the armrest of the couch. “Maybe if you exposed it more,” she teases, “you’ll get those cats to be more friendly with you.”

Cloud groans, resting his head back so that he can stare at the ceiling. “One slit-pupiled enemy was enough.”

Tifa nudges him in the thigh with her foot. “No one hates him more than you and me,” she reminds him, gently. “But… let’s just enjoy ourselves for tonight. You deserve to rest.”

Cloud closes his eyes, seeing flashes of green behind his eyelids. “Okay,” he says, opening them again slowly. “I can try.” He sees Tifa sitting up, arms held open for him to fall into, and goes willingly.

Tifa holds onto him, staring down at his hair with a determined face. “That’s all I ever ask from you, Cloud.”

Cloud relaxes against her. “I know.”


End file.
